Johnboy (Speed Limit 1000) just lost the handle on the Bockscar just past the 2 mile and kinda spun then rolled it a few times. Ron tells me that he's out of the car and walking around - Ron's got binoculars.

If it's a Bonneville or eastern pavement car you will find out about El Mirage dust in about 200 yds. You will have a start number that will be at the end of the first day if all goes well. If not early on day #2. closest motels are about 20-25 miles away. Bring your own fuel. Sleeping on the lake bed is OK but cold in Novemder. With that said come out and have a good time....

Johnboy (Speed Limit 1000) just lost the handle on the Bockscar just past the 2 mile and kinda spun then rolled it a few times. Ron tells me that he's out of the car and walking around - Ron's got binoculars.

The SP on the timing tag should be referring to the STATION PRESSURE which is a local barometric pressure number that is not corrected to sea level. Regardless of what the timing tag shows, you can go to the website http://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base_dyn.cgi?stn=BFLAT&unit=0&timetype=LOCAL and check the time of day closest to your run and look for PRESSURE and that will be the local STATION PRESSURE and is a quite accurate number that we the taxpayers are paying for to be well taken care of (the equipment) and the measurements taken at that station is on the salt flats.

Of course what it doesn't show is the conditions of the salt itself. There is also a live webcam on there as well.

Yes "Happy Pappy", you will be too rich by 14.2% WITH CARBS,,,,however, most modern EFI systems take into account the local air pressure and adjust automatically...

We old school types still have to swap out jets to keep things in the sweet spot.

As to the fact that many vehicles slow down after running several miles, the basic reason is quite simple...Heat Soak...

Assuming that nothing is wrong with a vehicle mechanically, an engine will continue heating for quite a while till thermal equalization is met where the heat output equals the cooling available in all the components...

For every 11 degrees F that the intake fuel/air charge heats up,,, a 1% power loss is experienced....

One thing I have noticed from my own experience as well as studying the Bonneville results is that most vehicles, especially bikes do not improve their speed from the 3 mile to the 5 mile. Some even slow down. Light vehicles like bikes can get to their maximum speed pretty quickly and don't need the extra 2 miles for acceleration. I know it is cool to run the long course, but the extra length can expose the vehicle and driver to engine failure, overheating, bad surface, etc. Any comments on this?

I would assume it works just like what I see on the dyno. As the barometric pressure drops, the entire curve makes less power. The shape of the curve including the peak TQ/HP remains the same, just a lower reading.